Category Archives: Oprah

**I am a regular contributor to the It Builds Character parenting site. (Yeah, I know – they let me write about parenting! Whaa?) Anyway, this was one of mine originally published there in March 2011. I thought it might be worthy of share on (Love) Notes because I feel too lazy to write something new today . **

When I had my first baby 6 years ago, everything, including the baby, was perfect. I got pregnant about six seconds after going off birth control, and the baby held off entering this world until I could graduate from business school the day earlier. He slept a lot and ate a lot. I sat around my house watching Oprah and Dr. Phil and everything else on daytime TV wondering, “What is everyone complaining about? Babies are easy!” When he was awake, my kid was always smiling and he was cute too. He didn’t have any health issues, allergy issues, sleep issues – nothing. My husband I brought him out to dinner with friends, baseball games, the grocery store, and he just sat there content the whole time. He was so good, there was an uneasy part of me that thought maybe he was the second coming of Christ, which would mean my husband wasn’t his biological father, and that could make things awkward if anyone ever found out. I eventually decided that since no wise men came to the hospital when he was born, I probably wasn’t the mother of God, but then again, maybe they just got lost – that place was really confusing.

The point is, having a baby didn’t really change our lives at all. We were well rested and had no reason to fight because our baby was perfect and so were our lives.

So when my son was 18 months old, I was all about having Number Two because kids were so easy and all those other parents were kind of whiners. Maybe they just weren’t doing everything right like I was – even though what I was doing I just made up everyday and my kid turned out totally perfect and above-average, which kind of proved that I just have a really natural penchant for child-rearing and really great genes. Man, was my son lucky I was so full of Awesome.

But when it was time for Number Two, things didn’t go exactly like Number One. Getting pregnant? Not so easy this time. And I don’t tolerate failure well, so I was naturally a joy to live with from the time I didn’t get pregnant immediately to the almost year later it took to conceive. I am kind of surprised my husband ever consented to sex after that again, because I regularly screeched things like, “We need to have sex precisely between 8:03pm and 8:11pm today or else I won’t get pregnant for yet another month!” and “I hope you have been following Section 3.1.2 of the Conception Rule Book I authored which states no alcohol, loose underwear and no masturbation. Be showered, shaved and ready to perform when I beckon. Failure is not an option.” So, needless to say, our sex life was truly awe-inspiring – not in a good way.

Eventually he finally did it right and I finally got pregnant with Number Two, who would surely turn out to be as perfect as Number One. Because after all, past performance is the best predictor of future performance, right? Number Two was born two days after Number One’s third birthday. I didn’t really prepare all that much because babies were easy and he could wear all his brother’s old clothes and he would like all the same stuff as Number One and this would be even simpler than Number One, so what was the point? My in-laws came into town a couple of weeks after the baby was born and we decided now would be a great time for my father-in-law and husband to renovate the family room by themselves. Because kids were easy, so I wouldn’t really need much help and who needs a family room in tact anyway?

Weeell, so Number Two wasn’t a clone of Number One. He cried a little more. He was gassy. After a few weeks, he began to projectile vomit. And then suddenly Perfect Number One was whiny and withdrawn and seemed to want constant attention as if that was what he was used to before this baby was born. Oh wait….right. And then on top of that, I was the lucky winner of a little bout of postpartum depression, so one of my favorite activities was sitting in my room crying for no reason. Nice. Within no time at all our perfect family of three became a sad, dysfunctional family of four. It turned out Number Two had a rare condition that required surgery to fix and without going into all the gory details, Year One of having two kids sucked. Really sucked hard.

And, I had to deal with the realization that I actually wasn’t the best parent ever, because Number One and Number Two were hard to deal with individually, and collectively. They drove my husband and I insane more than a few times and Wally and the Beav never did that to June and Ward. Perhaps we all weren’t as perfect as I had imagined. We had all we could handle with two kids and two full-time jobs and keeping our marriage out of the Alec Baldwin/Kim Basinger range, so we decided we were all finished with kids. After surviving that first year, it looked like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Our sons were healthy and happy and we were sleeping again. We were done. Thank God.

That was until about 15 months ago when I miraculously got pregnant again. Maybe I was to be the virgin mother of God after all. I mean, the odds of me getting pregnant were about equal to the odds of Oprah and Gayle breaking up – which has miracle written all over it. I’m still confused how you can try for a year and have no luck and then when you are doing your best not to, you get pregnant. I guess stuff happens. Well, to us at least.

I wasn’t thrilled. I was scared. We just barely made it through two – how on earth was I going to make it through another? This time my depression started immediately upon the discovery of pregnancy of Number Three. We had to move from the city to the suburbs. We had to get rid of the sedan and find a car that could fit three car seats. We had to become just like “real” parents and real adults that shuttle a bunch of kids around all weekend long. We had to change everything. And I wasn’t happy about it. I had gone from The Best Mother of All Time just six short years before to The Worst Mother of All Time Because I’m Really Super Not Excited About Another Baby.

And then we found out Number Three was a girl. Everyone delighted in exclaiming “You got your girl!” like I was going to keep having kids until I had a girl. I knew boys. I like boys. What on earth was I going to do with a girl? I spent most of the pregnancy disturbed and in denial as we sold our house, moved to the suburbs and turned into the nuclear family cliché. I thought I outsmarted the suburban gods by saying no to the minivan, but then I realized my gas guzzling, insanely huge SUV I had to buy to fit my entire litter was about as original as any Nickelback song you can think of. I would have saved some face buying the minivan.

But then a funny thing happened. Number Three was born and the world didn’t crumble. My life didn’t end. In fact, it got richer. I was in love with my daughter the second I held her. I can’t believe I spent so much time pissed off I was pregnant when I look at those three kids playing together. Having three kids is actually better than having two. Number One and Number Two keep each other busy and they are turning out to be insanely great big brothers and Number Three is not only the cutest kid in the universe, but she started sleeping through the night at three weeks. It makes me think – “Hey, this is easy!! What is everyone complaining about? Maybe we should have a couple more!?”

I think I just heard my husband smash his head into the counter and then chug his glass of wine.

This is me coming out to you, Internet. Over the past year I’ve been cooking up my next move because even though I finally got a job with an awesome company (for now), I still cannot depend on corporate America to satisfy my emotional, spiritual and intellectual needs, even if it does take pretty good care of my financial ones. Also, my brand of Awesomeness cannot be safely contained within the confines of any public company. It’s kind of like trying to fit Pamela Anderson’s boobs in my little training bra. It is extremely unsafe and ill-advised.

So, in addition to my corporate sales responsibilities, mothering three children and a dog, being my husband’s dream come true, and writing random blog posts wherever I’m allowed, I am now also a practicing life coach. I even have clients to prove it. They call me and we talk and hopefully when they get off the phone they feel better and they become insanely productive, joyful and successful. Usually because they had the Awesome to begin with, and then they somehow forgot it or lost it and then I reminded them and helped them pull that shit out! Well, and then they got off their ass and did something about it. Unlike writing this blog, I get paid for this, people. Pretty sweet, right?

So if you regularly read (Love) Notes, you might be wondering how a person like me winds up as somebody’s life coach. Well, because none of them are aware of this blog. That is probably the first and most important reason that I have clients, so don’t tell them or I am ruined. They might actually read this or this and beg PayPal to get their money back. Secondly, people who are Awesome like other people who aren’t afraid to tell them something straight up. I’m good at that. Like the way I tell Oprah on this blog just what I think in a way her sycophant producers aren’t capable of because they are under O’s magical Harpo spell. I’m not like that at all. See, I was born with a condition where I can’t not tell somebody what I really think, and that happens to be extremely helpful in life coaching, and not as much in corporate America which I have learned the hard way, over and over and over. Finally, inspiration fuels my life. My clients inspire me. Sometimes even more than Oprah and Take 5 bars and those little blue papers you put on your face to get the oil off, which is kind of huge.

But I have chosen my clients wisely. I don’t have time to help the masses, so they have to be special. Here is the criteria: they know they have the Awesome in them. They know the life they are living is not honoring their Awesome. They need someone to help them tell their current life to fuck off and to start a new life of delirious joyfulness. And they would like me to be that helper because sometimes being able to drop F-bombs about what is holding you back feels great. These people? Are going to make a big difference in this world and I get a front row seat, which is amazing.

So I know what you’re thinking: “What gives anybody the right to call themselves a life coach – especially you, Love?” Well, the answer is that anybody has the right at any given moment right now since the practice is not actually regulated in any of the 50 states, so if you feel like a life coach and you have the wherewithall to print up some business cards that say so – viola! – you’re a life coach. And a lot of people do that. But not me. I’m a little more legit than that because I also built a very shitty website and I have a special email address with my own company name on the end of it, so I can command much higher prices. Okay, and yes, I did actually get trained by Oprah’s life coach (I KNOW, RIGHT?!) but the point is that you don’t have to. Which is why you should be very careful when you hire a life coach. It could be Lindsay Lohan working under a pseudonym. Or an anonymous blogger who has had very strange and wonderful things happen to her that she likes to swear about.

Speaking of LiLo, the other thing people usually go off on about life coaches is about how every life coach they’ve ever met is the most fucked up person they know, like they are some big joke. Like if Kim Kardashian all of a sudden announced that she was a life coach. Actually, that would make for some great television… but I don’t understand this mentality. We elect people to Congress all the time who are more fucked up than anybody we know. So why do people discriminate against life coaches? If you’re one of these people, go call up whoever is ‘representing you’ in Congress and once they get done uploading pictures of themselves naked to a porn site, they may give you a call back. What they are charged with is kind of a big deal, so get mad at them for not being perfect. Leave your judgement of your local neighborhood “life coach” at the door. Sure, some of them are really fucked up, but there is a market for that! Some people will feel better if they can feel superior to their life coach. They’ll finish every sessions saying, “Hell! If this crazy bitch who kisses her dogs full on the mouth with her delinquent kids and her drug addiction can be a coach, maybe I should too!” and that is inspiration right there. A win-win if you ask me.

So anyway, now you’re in on my Second Act. I’m still getting a corporate paycheck, but my practice is going to grow and soon Oprah will be calling me up to have my own show on OWN and dole out advice with Suze, Mehmet, Phil, Nate and the sex doctor lady. Actually, I don’t want my own show, so I’ll have to turn her down, but I hope that later she’ll describe it as one of her most profound a-ha moments. All I want is to be known as the coach behind some of the most incredible transformations the world has ever seen and who also writes F-bomb laced self-important stories about herself on this website. Okay and I also want Oprah to validate me by offering me a show I need to turn down because like she always says, “What I know for sure is that all people want is VAL-EH-DAY-SHUN”. And also I would like Tina Fey to subscribe to this blog and not because she is making fun of it. So I mean, that’s all.

UPDATE, INTERNET. This girl is back on FB and is stalking me to be friends again. Please read this post I wrote for her a couple of years ago. What say you? Should I accept?

Pathological liars are the best. Except if you have one as an oncologist. Then that could suck. Balls.

But I happen to know this girl from high school that has to take the pathological lying cake, so obviously I really liked to hang with her. She is not an oncologist. Lets just call her “Jenny”, because that is her real name. She would regale me with stories about how she had a friend who knew the New Kids on the Block and could totally get her into their hotel or a concert whenever they came through Chicago. I was 14 and this was big time currency in 1991. Donnie Wahlberg and I were totally soul mates from 1990 to 1993 – he just wasn’t aware of it yet – and then I think Oprah took his place in 1994 and remains my soul mate to this day. The only difference is that Oprah knows it and just won’t accept it. Oprah is clearly not living her best life.

I digress. So anyway, my crazy ass friend Jenny would talk constantly about her friend “Lisa” who worked at Ulta3 and was like, totally BFF with little Joey McIntyre and one day as we were perusing Bop* and Tiger Beat she was telling me how she and Lisa were going to their upcoming show and then hanging out with them afterward, and naturally she invited me along too.

Isn’t it weird that pathological liars always give you a chance to totally catch them lying? So they’ll be like, “I’m totally Rob Pattinson’s lover, do you want to have a threesome with us?” Now, there is only one good answer for this and that is “yes”. Not because you want the threesome (even though you know you do) but because if you say “no”, then you don’t even get to find out what kind of additional, outrageous lies they will tell to get them out of having to prove that they are fucking Rob Pattinson. So I always say “yes” whenever a pathological liar wants to prove to me they aren’t lying, because its so damn amusing.

Curse you, ADD! (Love is looking angrily to the sky) Can I get through one fucking story without going off on a tangent!?

Okay, so of course I’m like, “I would love to go! Can I invite my little cousin who has leukemia because she is totally into Jordan and wants to put her little radiated fingers through his stiff, sticky hair and touch one of his silky vests before she dies.” (pathological liars deserve to be lied to) and Jenny is like, “TOTALLY! Me and Lisa will set it up!” and I’m like, “Awesome. I’ll let her know she can die fulfilled because you are totally going to hook us up.” Luckily I was aware my friend was totally full of shit and this is how:

1) She is of Asian descent. But not a smart Asian (does coming to America make you dumb?). I think this is really bad if this happens to you. I imagine its like if you’re black, but you dance like Elaine on Seinfeld. Its just mostly impossible and completely unacceptable.

2) She is 5’2″ (this will become important later)

3) In high school, she was not that attractive and she wasn’t rich.

4) She is the oldest of three kids and her mom was a working single mom. I don’t know what her dad’s story was, but he was out of the picture.

So the likelihood of her fucking a New Kid was equivalent to John Tesh’s chances of being named People’s Sexiest Man Alive.

Okay, so we’re back in 1991. The NKOTB show is coming to Chicago, and my friend Jenny is like BFF with Joe McIntyre’s BFF, which happens to be a 17 year old named Lisa that works at Ulta3 in a suburb of Chicago. I know, right? So, its the day before the show that we are going to where we supposedly have backstage passes, and front row seats, and all access to the New Kids on the Block, who are expecting us and cannot wait to fucking meet our 14 year old asses (and my cousin with cancer).

Of course, Jenny couldn’t give me and my cancer-ridden pretend cousin our tickets or passes because you have to get those at the show. So the night before she calls me to say that Lisa called her and there was some terrible mix-up and they only had Lisa down for two tickets, so she wasn’t sure if me and my cousin could still go. So I was like “well, can’t Lisa just call Joey Joe and explain the problem? I’d be happy to meet him at the hotel to pick up the tickets. I’m sure my dad won’t have a problem driving me.” She’s like, “I didn’t even think of that! Of COURSE Lisa could do that.” So she hangs up the phone and sits idlely for 8 minutes calls Lisa to find out and calls me back and says, “Joey has a photo shoot to do right before the show, so they won’t be at the hotel, but he said maybe he could give them to Big Rob (the bodyguard) to give to you.” So naturally I exclaim, “Oh, Jenny! You’ve just made all my dreams come true. And my cancer ridden cousin too. Where should me and Big Rob make the big exchange?” And she fucking gives me an address and time to meet Big Rob the bodyguard. There are so very few limits. So then she calls the day of the concert to say that Big Rob totally has strep throat and can’t make it and yada, yada, yada. She will go on to tell me she went to the show, hung out with all the New Kids and “Donnie is so cool!” and she has pictures. Do I want to see?

Yes. Definitely.

But aw, shucks! She explained a day later that when she brought the film in for processing that everything got erased. All she can think of is that there were metal detectors backstage and the fucking things somehow erased all the 35 mm film in her camera. And it totally sucked because she was on Joey’s lap and everything. I won’t even go there…

Okay, so flash forward to a lovely day in March of this year. I’m trolling Facebook for the 34th time that day and trying to think up a clever status, when suddenly I’m told that someone named Jenny Df wants to be my friend. Df? Is that a last name? I don’t know who this person is…until I see the personal message accompanying the invite. Ah yes, its my good old friend Jenny. Her last name has changed. To a last name that surely exists nowhere in the world. How I had missed her!! I wanted to know EVERYTHING about what I missed the last 15 years, but mostly whether she was still the biggest-fucking-not-hot-dumb-ass-Asian-liar-of-all-time.

Since we had parted ways somewhere around 1994, she told me that she went to New York and was a Tom Ford model for many years. Years in which she made best friends with Rhea Durham and Gisele Bundchen. Okay, so admittedly I know nothing about modeling…except that I think you have to be an inch or two over 5’2″ and you have to be good looking and you have to have big boobs, like my sister. But she did have a profile picture which showed her in a Glamour Shots-like pose with fake boobs and nasty ass extensions. She reported that she made so much money as a runway model and she invested that money so wisely, that she is now retired and now she spends all of her time volunteering to work with animals. Her husband is an incredibly sexy, extremely talented actor that I just haven’t heard of yet. They live in Hollywood Hills. She was currently trying to figure out whether or not she should take the job as one of the “Deal or No Deal” girls. I didn’t mention it, but I thought that such an intellectual pursuit might actually blow her mind, since she had been retired for so long and all. She must have tacitly agreed, for she wrote: “The doggies need me more than the pubic (sic) right now”. I am not fucking making this up. There’s more…

So then as the weeks go by and I’m checking Facebook 234 times a day as usual and I see her statuses every few days that go a little something like this, “Jess, it was so good to see you and Tony the other night. I’m trying to get our schedules to sync so we can be out in Dallas for the next game!” and “So happy for my dearest friends Tom and G! Congratulations! Give little Johnny a kiss for us” and “Audrina, I’m so sad I missed you last night at the awards. We totally have to catch up again.” and finally, “Does anybody have a good cleanse? I have a Hawaiian Tropic shoot tomorrow and I don’t want to look too fat :(” It doesn’t even end there. She started a chat with me one night on Facebook and I swear to God, she tells me that she and Rhea Durham are BFF from their NYC modeling days and she remembers I liked Donnie Wahlberg and her dearest Rhea is with Mark Wahlberg and now its so weird because they hang out ALL THE TIME and Mark is such a sweetheart!

Lest you think I’m a pathological liar, I am not. I would have copied and pasted directly from Facebook and told you guys to go ask her to be your friend so your life would be full of amusement like mine, but when I just went to do so, I realized she is no longer my friend. And no longer on Facebook. Unless I just can’t find her because I’m blocked or something. I would write her little comments like “Jenny, you are SOOOOOO lucky to be friends with Jessica Simpson. I am SOOOOOO jealous”. and “Jenny, you look so pretty and wonderful these days. I’m SOOOOO jealous. See you when I get to LA!” She was lapping that shit up. But somehow much to my dismay I am either blocked or she left Facebook. I don’t know how I let this ridiculously amusing friend leave my life again because its hard to find dumb Asians who are pathological liars and don’t head up North Korea , but I’m sure she’ll turn up somewhere else. Perhaps as Dean of Harvard Law or as a United Nations Ambassador.

God, wherever you are Jenny Df, I heart you. Next time you see Tom and Gisele, punch her in the face (not the stomach) and tell her to stop pretending that Bridget Moynihan’s kid is hers. Thanks.

*OMG, I just remember that I was listed (with my picture) in Bop as one of those kids you can be penpals with. How fucked up is that? Now I see that the Bop pen pal pages where were all the future MySpace pedophiles began their journeys. I got seriously like 200,000 letters one month from that. Where the fuck were my parents? I would give my right arm to have a copy of that issue of Bop now. I bet it is creepy as all hell. Good Lord.

There are three things in this world I love more than my children. Oprah and red wine are the obvious first two. The third is the Great White shark. I’m not sure whether it’s because they sometimes eat humans by accident or that they can’t be kept in captivity or that they’ve been around since the dinosaurs, but any of those things is reason enough. I have honestly lived with my obsession for as long as I can remember, so naturally I underwent past life regression hypnosis to uncover that I was indeed a Great White shark in a past life, but it turns out that I was just a soldier that got himself eviscerated in medieval times. Not exactly what one hopes for when they explore these types of things. But I did learn something albeit centuries too late: when you’re at battle axe camp you need to pay attention.

So I went to another source to figure out what it all means and explored animal totems. I don’t know what the point of a totem is besides having a reason to tattoo yourself to seem super spiritual and weird. So I am considering it. But what I’m trying to say is that it must mean something that me and Jaws are closer than Oprah and my arch-nemesis Gayle, so I looked up what it means to have the shark as a totem and it’s really as complicated and spiritual as you might imagine, but I’ll do my best to net it out in lay terms: having a shark as my totem means that I’m just about as awesome as awesome gets. And that works for me.

So you might imagine my pure, fucking glee when Shark Week comes around every August. I’m convinced it’s the only reason why August exists anymore. Shark Week. I mean, just typing the words send shivers up my spine. There has never been a week of programming more beautiful than Discovery’s thoughtful and poignant programming during Shark Week, including such classics as “Air Jaws” and “When Fish Attack III”, “The Summer of the Shark” and “Top Five Eaten Alive” between commercials that are about conserving the shark population. Yeah, I don’t really get it either, but I can’t look away. My Tivo smokes that week with all the action it gets for Shark Week.

And why? Fun fact: Great White sharks can not be held in captivity. Nowhere in this world will you find a Great White in an aquarium or in a Disney World resort lagoon. Not even Donald Trump has been able to capture a Great White, mount a laser beam on its head, and have them swim around the grounds of his magnificent estate waiting for the next Celebrity Apprentice to get fired. So the only way I can appropriately feed my Great White obsession is to see Shark Night 3D on September 2 go see one in real life.

This is why the number one thing on my list of shit to do before I die of the inoperable brain tumor I’m sure is growing deep in my brain as we speak is to get my ass in one of those shark cages and act as bait so I can pet a Great White shark.

My goal however, is fraught with a few challenges. Like: I hate being in the water unless I am in a shower. I hate being in boats in the ocean that are not larger the island of Oahu unless Andy Samberg and T-Pain are involved. Scuba diving seems impossible not only because it requires being submerged in water, but because my asthma is so bad that my lung capacity rivals that of a dying hamster who has tuberculosis and a collapsed lung. Being caged is another problem for me. Not a fan of confinement, much like my buddy, the Great White. (Or any gorilla I have ever seen at a zoo. You know they’d rip your head off if they ever got the chance. Those mother fuckers are angry. Right? I know.)

But, back to shit I hate: getting in one of those wetsuit things would only exacerbate the concavity of my little peanut boobs (which, by the way, have somehow found away to sink even further into my chest since the Great-guilty-3rd-child-breastfeeding-experiment-of-2010. Not recommended.) I also could do without sea sickness, chum and sailors.

Yeah. So, I might have some obstacles to overcome before seeing my shark in real life. But I’m telling you, if I can get over them, seeing that huge, 20 foot long fucking fish swim by me a few times and then have it attack my cage try to eat me in two bites with that ginormous mouth full of hundreds of teeth? OMG. OMG! OMG! OMG!

Let’s all take a minute to honor the orgasm I just had.

Okay, we’re good.

Ultimately, I will be afraid to go in that cage because there is a good chance I will die. But not because of the shark. Because of the panic attack I’ll have as soon as I am submerged 2-3 feet under water. It wouldn’t be the first time. Ask my 4-year-old to tell you about what happened at the neighborhood pool last week. I almost died. It was totally serious. I mean, they just let kids jump in the damn pool whenever and wherever the hell they want and the splash travels like 5 feet. You’d freak out too if the splash got your face and hair wet. It’s fucking traumatic.

Anyway, I think it is time I get around to the point of my story. Next fall, BD and I celebrate our 10th anniversary (assuming he doesn’t star in a Lifetime movie with LeAnn Rimes before then) and I turn 36 and we are taking a diving trip off Guadalupe Island in Mexico to see the most exquisite animal on this planet so I can die without regret and earn the right to a cool shark tattoo that is totally spiritual and meaningful. I mean, I haven’t actually told him this yet, but saying it so matter of factly makes me feel like it’s totally going to happen. And you give power to what you focus on, so I’m going to forget about my aversion to boats, water, Scuba, cages, chum, sailors and I’m going to focus on the orgasm I just had two paragraphs ago imagining being attacked by a Great White shark.

And then remember how I had that really mind bending post entitled, “Hellz Yaz” about whether its better to have huge puss-filled zits all over my chin or have a sex drive? And everyone voted that I remain a sex kitten with zits? And my big-boobed sister warned me that natural family planning was a very bad idea?

Do you see where this is going? Yeah. Surprise!! I’m preggers. Not really what I was planning for 2010, or 2011 – 2050. And my angel didn’t even have the balls to warn me this time. The news hit right after New Years Day (same day I got my new job offer, so my new boss got to be the second to know) and I don’t think I’ve been quite the same since. I can’t figure out whether the nausea is from the pregnancy hormones or the idea that the gods thought it would be a good idea to put another human on this earth who has me for its mother. When I found out, BD was so worried about my mental state (probably because he’d never seen anybody catatonic before) he promised to stay sober with me this whole pregnancy, which is awesome. The other two times I was the designated driver and it was not awesome. It actually does make me feel better to know that I’m not the only one who will be suffering the next nine months, which I think is what makes BD love me so much.

So I won’t lie – the change of plans has had me in a tail spin for the last two months, which I probably could have recovered from in a week if wine could have been involved, but without alcohol, and with nausea and a new job and exhaustion, I could sum up my life perfectly in one non-word: “meh”. Which is why you haven’t heard from me. The juice has been gone.

However…the good news is that I’m over it now. I’m going to be a mother yet again, and red wine no longer calls to me during my long, sleepless nights and now I have a third chance to make a first impression. Maybe I’ll try breastfeeding this time. Or maybe I’ll freak out and change my mind a month before like I did the last time. No promises there.

And maybe this kid will be the one who winds up changing my diapers when I’m 92 and I’ll be like “Oh, now I get it, God. You’re the best!” And lets not forget about the nightly “happiness” I have to look forward to in the coming months. This time I will make buying porn a part of the getting ready for baby checklist, just so we don’t have to go through the histrionics of yesteryear.

So I’m psyched. I didn’t think we’d have any more kids but now that it has been determined that we will indeed, I’m stoked. And I haven’t seen an episode of Oprah in two months, and its given me a strength I didn’t know I had. I think I might be okay when she stops the show now. I think I might survive. And that goes for everything – the pregnancy, the delivery, the new job, the new house we’ll have to buy and even the…GULP…minivan? (okay, that last one was really hard for me to say)

Worst Blogger Ever. That is the prize I’m going for. I’m also putting myself up for Most Popular at Lunch Time in my new office, but if I’m being honest, I’m a shoe-in for the first and a dark horse at best for the latter.

When I have time I’ve told myself my blog doesn’t suck. But lots o’ things happened in early January that leave me without an ounce of time or energy for anything fun. In fact, I have 9 unwatched episodes of Oprah on Tivo at this point. NINE. That has never happened in the all of the history of all of the world, so I hope you can understand the gravity of what it is I am dealing with.

Forgive me Oprah, for I have sinned.

So I’m kind of in a funk and a crazy place in life. I’m trying to pull myself out of it and find some time to do what I love (worshipping Oprah and writing this blog) but sometimes life gets in the way. Just keep me on your reader and hopefully soon my inspiration will return and we can resume our little fireside chats. I have no idea when it will hit, but I hope it comes back soon.

In the meantime, for those of you who blog or write or create, this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of “Eat, Pray, Love”) might be meaningful to you and helpful when contemplating a funk like the one I find myself in. Enjoy!

Holy shit you guys. Not only does my job require getting my ass up an hour earlier, catching a train and walking to an office every morning where I sit in a cube that has my name on it – it also requires….work. The last five days were like five years. Office time is like dog years when stuff is actually expected of you and people want you to produce things in a time period that is actually challenging. No wonder Oprah has those bags under her eyes.

My new boss is a great guy, but he appears to have certain expectations of me that I feel obliged to live up to – at least at my first week on the job. He wants me to help him change the world (well, the world as it applies to my new little company) and I’m kind of like, “Yeah! Awesome! Let’s do it!” when I’m really thinking, “What the fuck am I doing here? Why.the.hell. am I in a suit?”. On the other hand, I have been very vocal about all things that I don’t like and he tends to agree with me so I think that is why he thinks of me as his brother in arms. Did I tell you this guy used to be a Green Beret? Yeah, I never thought me and a Green Beret could be friends, but he is teaching me his battle techniques and together we’re raising a shit storm.

There are two other people who have been with the company a couple of years that share my same job, except they just made this new role up, so my boss wants me to “show” them what needs to be done, because he thinks they are too comfortable and questions their fitness for the role. His take on this is not making me the popular new girl on the scene. Quite the opposite, I think they want to kick me in the face. And I get it. They’re all, “WTF? She is here 2 days and she is getting all the attention? (cough simultaneous with a “bullshit” under their breaths.” I have been nothing but really cool but apparently my Awesomenesss is very intimidating and really hard to play down sometimes.

So basically I haven’t been able to talk to anybody around the water cooler yet, which is probably good because I was too exhausted to watch American Idol or Project Runway. And I invited myself out to lunch with my 2 new friends that like me so much and are in an office gang clique I’m not privy to yet, which was kind of awkward. So right now I’m kind of a loner. I think maybe even the administrative assistant who runs the whole office even hates me. But maybe that will make me more mysterious and powerful. Or maybe a loser. I’m not sure how it will all play out. My only friend appears to be my new boss, but he doesn’t work in my office, so our friendly phone chats are all I have at this point. Well, and BD. Now we only work a few blocks from one another, so he takes me out to lunch so I’m not left alone at McDonalds wailing and gnashing my teeth over my #2 Value Meal.

So, all in all – the new job = AWESOME. I can’t think of a thing I would change. So give me a month or two before I’m feeling all the warm vibes I get from retelling ridiculous stories. I know I still owe you the story about the time the Seal look-alike (but even scarier) held me hostage in a cab. Hopefully the people at work will stop hating me and realizing that the mountains of joy I can bring through telling them all of the crazy shit that happens to me. Or maybe they’ll just become the crazy shit that happens to me, and then you guys will win by hearing what happens next.

But stay tuned because I have some stuff that needs to be revealed that kind of breaks the balance of the universe. I just need the time to do it justice.